Hello! I will be using this space to share my journey from industry to academia and I am hoping the time I am taking down to share my journey would help everyone, especially women. It's going to go timeline-wise with little anecdotes that I still look back on and laugh at, lessons, and misconceptions about PhD application. Enjoy Reading and learning from my experiences. Hope it helps.

Lessons

An Anecodote from the Year 2022: I reached out to tons of researchers to collaborate and barely anyone responded except one. I took up an academic collaboration in Sept 2022 (unpaid, yes!) but I enjoyed every bit of whatever I was doing. I realized I love understanding human emotions. I love to observe how I regulate myself on days I feel low and how social media affects all of it. My first project was studying deception using computational methods (for the purpose of sharing lessons related to graduate school application, I would be sharing limited research experiences here). So going back to the unpaid part, I was able to take the privilege of taking up a collaboration because I had enough savings from my industrial jobs (~2 years) that could give me a good life even if I didn't work for another year. Because I loved the work, I gave it my all and through some medium, it turned into a decently paying job in a month. So only take such risks if you have money/savings!:)

Lesson 1 [Have savings]: Save money that gives you the courage to take up work that you love doing.  Take up a part-time job/consulting along with exploring research interests. I remember doing 3 part-time jobs at once and to be able to get these opportunities please reach out to people, be extremely honest, and work hard, the world is yours!  

Lesson 2 [Network]: Don't hesitate, to reach out to people. I always prefer meeting in person because it helps to go beyond professional queries and to know someone and learn from their journey. I gained strength from women who took pay cuts to follow what they liked doing even at a later stage in their careers. The early 20s is the time to take risks. Form communities of people from diverse backgrounds but similar value systems to support you when you feel you won't get through the things you are aiming for.

Lesson 3 [Apply widely]: After I realized that I wanted to have all the independence, and do a PhD, I applied to just 3 schools (MIT, UC Berkeley, and UMich). Ambitious and stupid thing to do; I got interviewed by UC Berkeley and a professor replied from MIT although my application wasn't shortlisted and I got rejected by all three in 2022. Please apply to at least 10 schools. If you are an international applicant, do good work, get it accepted, and don't miss a chance to present your work and meet people at the conference.

Lesson 4 [Be Mindful of every word]: Be mindful of anything you ask for in your professional network, it's not fair to ask someone to write a letter to whom you didn't report. Every email sent to a professor leaves an impression, so be mindful, reiterate 10 times, and ask for feedback when unsure.

Lesson 5 [Find Right Mentors]: You will across many people who could offer you work or collaboration opportunities but finding the right set of mentors will set you apart. To find whether you are a right fit to work with someone, talk to students who work with them. In my case, I am extremely thankful to two advisors (Dr Amit Sheth, and Dr Kokil Jaidka) who went beyond their bandwidth to provide the right mentorship. Right mentors are the ones who will point you out whenever you are going wrong apart from supporting you. In Dr. Sheth's words, "Almost all successes are relatable due to a real human giving a helping hand, directing/mentoring, giving support, encouraging, etc. Many failures are also due to wrong advice or not taking the inputs from the right people." So be mindful and have advisors who show you the right direction and provide timely guidance. 

Misconceptions

Misconception 1 [3+ first-author papers at top conferences]: I was told that I need to have X first-author papers from top conferences and X was generally >=3 when the goal is to make it to a top PhD program. I don't have three but I was able to get through, so I am sure you would also be. But yes X should be at least 1 and the rest could be contributing to someone else's project.

Misconception 2 [Didn't do undergrad from IITs or a premier school]: I was not sure if I would be able to get through a single PhD admission because I didn't have a full-time master's degree or an undergrad degree from a known school (for example IITs). What I have learned through the process is if your recommenders write strongly about your research experience and leadership skills, and probably my recommenders could share that well, I think you get through. Fortunately, I came across Dr. Tanya Goyal, a professor at Cornell who helped me clear my misconception while I was applying, and when I shared with her that I got through MIT. She reminded me about my misconceptions! Super Fortunate to have met a wonderful set of women mentors.

Misconception 3 [Letter from senior prof/ premier school]: I had a misconception that getting a letter from someone who is senior and at a known place might help me get shortlisted but I was wrong. I did fine having letters from researchers who knew my journey and wanted to vouch for me instead of focusing on seniority or the leading school.

Misconception 4 [Too late to start a PhD?]: This question kept bothering me because I completed my undergrad in 2019 and realized in 2022 that I wanted to do PhD and become a professor but it takes 5 years.  As a woman coming from India, this becomes more challenging. Please know that there are people who complete their PhD at 38 or 50ish but that's okay. I believe we need to define our timeline if we are doing what we love.

Misconception 5 [GRE Requirements]: Most of the schools have lifted GRE requirements, especially for a doctorate/master's in CS. Make the list of schools early to know that you do not need to take the GRE.

Funding Applications - Applying to atleast 10 schools costs around 1200USD but a lot of these schools offer application fee waivers. I found this github repo helpful: Link

Link to my SOP (I had multiple admits and all of them had this statement with 90% similarity)